The Collectors Showcase Berlin 1938 - Adolf Hitler

Collectors Showcase CS00417 Berlin 1938 - Adolf Hitler (1:30 Scale) "I would rather die standing up in a Mercedes than hide away."- German Chancellor Adolf Hitler commenting upon a possible assasination attempt while riding in his limousine, 1938

The Collectors Showcase presents the beginning of our new series: Berlin 1938. A series meant to chronicle, in miniature, Berlin at the height of the Third Reich's pre-war power. The first diorama offering is the Fuhrer's Reichkanzlei office complete with map table, lamps and removable swastika flag. The initial figure set offerings are the figures and personalities that brought the Western world to the edge of oblivion. Each figure comes with a removable hat allowing greater flexibility in display. The launch of this series heralds a long view of the great variety of Berlin locales available to the collector. Each vignette setting brings the collector another view of the city's central points throughout the Nazi period. Sold Out!

Historical Account: Adolf Hitler (April 20th, 1889 - April 30th, 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, abbreviated NSDAP), commonly known as the Nazi Party. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and, after 1934, also head of state as Fuhrer und Reichskanzler, ruling the country as an absolute dictator.

A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the precursor of the Nazi Party (DAP) in 1919 and became leader of NSDAP in 1921. He attempted a failed coup called the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in 1923, for which he was imprisoned. Following his imprisonment, in which he wrote his book, Mein Kampf, he gained support by promoting German nationalism, anti-semitism, anti-capitalism, and anti-communism with charismatic oratory and propaganda. He was appointed chancellor in 1933, and quickly transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideals of national socialism.

Hitler ultimately wanted to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe. To achieve this, he pursued a foreign policy with the declared goal of seizing Lebensraum ("living space") for the Aryan people; directing the resources of the state towards this goal. This included the rearmament of Germany, which culminated in 1939 when the Wehrmacht invaded Poland. In response, the United Kingdom and France declared war against Germany, leading to the outbreak of World War II in Europe.

Within three years, Germany and the Axis powers had occupied most of Europe, and most of Northern Africa, East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean. However, with the reversal of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, the Allies gained the upper hand from 1942 onwards. By 1945, Allied armies had invaded German-held Europe from all sides. Nazi forces engaged in numerous violent acts during the war, including the systematic murder of as many as 17 million civilians, including an estimated six million Jews targeted in the Holocaust and between 500,000 and 1,500,000 Roma, Poles, Soviet civilians, Soviet prisoners of war, people with disabilities, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other political and religious opponents.

In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time mistress Eva Braun and, to avoid capture by Soviet forces less than two days later, the two committed suicide on 30 April 1945.